Chapter 1239 — The Supreme of the Heaven Realm Breaks Free

That sword was Shen Mu's Tribulation-Answering Sword. It entered the body in a single thrust: first it shattered Heavenly Lord Han's Heaven Palace, then it severed the divine bridge, crushed the Heaven-Man, broke through life and death, and all along the way cut down and annihilated his Heaven Palaces and his Divine Treasury alike.

His Divine Treasury and his Heaven Palaces collapsed, and his very flesh burst apart with a thunderous roar, shaken into fine dust by the power within him.

Yet Heavenly Lord Han had refined himself to that level where formations themselves were his Dao; so long as his formation patterns endured, he could not die, and could reassemble himself at any moment.

It might be said that Heavenly Lord Han was the very bane of Shen Mu's third tribulation sword, the Tribulation-Answering Sword.

But Shen Mu's skills did not end there. At the instant his sword pierced into Heavenly Lord Han's body, great Dao runes made expressly to counter the runes of the Fortress Wall Formation were driven into Han's body as well, leaving him no way to bring his formation Dao into play!

Another Heavenly Lord Han crumbled and dissolved, slain in body and extinguished in Dao!

The other two Heavenly Lord Hans were shocked to the core, and hastily turned to see whence that sword had come.

And what they saw when they looked chilled them to the marrow.

The domain of the Divine Treasury, which they had battered into a field of ruins, had now recovered whole and unblemished. Heaven Palaces floated one upon another, forming a Heavenly Court; Shen Mu's primal spirit had reappeared; in the heavens the sun, the moon, the stars and Xuandu had returned; the Yuandu Continent had come into being again, growing faster even than Xirang; and the Primeval Tree stood lush and verdant once more, joining earth to sky, as though it had never been damaged at all! The Four Extremes Heaven, Youdu, Tianyin, Xuandu, even the Ancestral Court — all were exactly as they had been before.

The Heavenly River surged on, vast and mighty, threading through every world, and the ancient gods Shen Mu stood in their own domains, each holding the authority over Dao and law within the domain of the Divine Treasury! And that sword just now had been a single great divine ability issued from within Shen Mu's Divine Treasury!

"Heavenly Lord Han, how many true bodies do you have in all?

" A voice rang out.

The two Heavenly Lord Hans turned in haste, and there, standing whole and sound before them, was the very Shen Mu they had just beaten into a puddle of muck; and the muck upon the ground had vanished without a trace! Shen Mu remained in his most perfect state, seemingly with no consumption at all, no injury whatsoever.

The two Heavenly Lord Hans at once drew back, retreating in the same direction, and on the instant their bodies collided — the two Heavenly Lord Hans merged into one, and their Fortress Wall Formations merged as well, transforming into an even more gigantic giant.

This giant was stronger still, for two great Fortress Wall Formations had after all fused together. Though its divine abilities reacted more slowly, their power was truly fearsome: with a single blow it punched clean through Shen Mu's Divine Treasury domain and came charging out at breakneck speed!

He dared not linger in battle. Had it been before, with six true bodies, he would still have dared to fight; but now that four true bodies lay dead at Shen Mu's hands, he no longer dared stake his life on one last gamble!

Shen Mu crossed his hands, and the sixteen Heaven Palaces revolved, transforming into a Taiji Diagram that enveloped Heavenly Lord Han — this was the great divine ability known as the Void-Form Guest Taiji.

Within the countless cubes around Heavenly Lord Han, one Fortress Wall Formation god or demon after another was transmuted into the two energies of yin and yang and torn frantically out of his body.

Heavenly Lord Han shrank rapidly, a size smaller in no time; yet the next moment his divine ability erupted, and with a single strike he shattered three Heaven Palaces in a row, pulverizing the three palaces and the three Shen Mu primal spirits within them, and won his way out and fled!

Shen Mu was startled as well; then he raised his hand and struck, a sword that severed the Thirty-Three Heavens, stabbing at Heavenly Lord Han's back.

Heavenly Lord Han roared, swung his arm backward, and the arm was instantly chopped off, split into thirty-three pieces. He hurtled on and on, and the Fortress Wall Formation gods and demons that made up that arm he simply abandoned.

The Fortress Wall Formation was one army of the Heavenly Court, and its gods and demons were not of especially high cultivation — most were True Gods, deities of the Yaochi realm — and if they died, they died; their lives were not worth his own.

Tubo Shen Mu of Youdu surfaced, using the Nether River as a whip to coil around Heavenly Lord Han and whittle away the three souls and seven spirits of the Fortress Wall Formation army.

Lord of Heaven Shen Mu surfaced from above, and with a wave of his hand loosed forty-nine Heavenly Dao divine abilities, blasting Heavenly Lord Han so that every part of his body burst open, while heavenly fire burned those Fortress Wall Formation gods and demons until their souls scattered and their spirits fled.

The Primeval Tree swept across, flaying the skin from him. The four ancient-god Shen Mus of the Four Extremes Heaven transformed into the Azure Dragon, the White Tiger, the Vermilion Bird, the Black Tortoise and other marvels, pouncing to kill, while the true gods of the stars of the whole heaven spread an inescapable net of heaven and earth; and Tianyin Shen Mu shattered the primal spirits of thousands of gods and demons with a single blow.

But even so, Heavenly Lord Han's speed only increased.

Wherever he passed, the Primeval Tree broke, the Nether River split apart, Tianyin Shen Mu perished, and the ancient-god Shen Mus of the Four Extremes Heaven were beheaded — their deaths most hideous. Even the Lord of Heaven Shen Mu was struck by a blow that sent him tumbling down out of Xuandu.

Shen Mu sighed inwardly: "My strength is still not enough.

My divine abilities have come through, but my cultivation realm has not. I can defeat Heavenly Lord Han, yet I can absolutely never kill him.

" Heavenly Lord Han careered wildly about, broke out of Shen Mu's Divine Treasury domain, and fled for his life, crying in a harsh voice: "Celestial Venerable Mu, you have provoked me past all bearing! When I recover my strength, I shall see to it that you never rise again through all eternity—" Before he could finish the words, he abruptly halted.

For there ahead of him stood a Buddha of elegant and handsome features: Indra Li Youran.

While Shen Mu and he had been locked in battle, Indra Li Youran had repaired the Ark of the Other Shore. Heavenly Lord Han's body was too vast; he could not arrest its momentum, and could only grit his teeth and charge forward as the shattered cubes around him dropped away one after another.

The Fortress Wall Formation gods and demons within those cubes, wounded as they were inside the Divine Treasury domain, impaired the working of the formation, and he cast them off without a shred of mercy. Indra Li Youran's face was grave and solemn.

He watched him draw nearer and nearer, and the precious countenance of the Buddha upon his face turned monstrous with wrath, while about his body blazed the raging fire of the Vidyaraja!

He had always had a bond with the Buddhist Dharma; it was only that the feelings within his heart could not be resolved.

Later, when his clansmen were ambushed and slain, he had believed the killer to be the Crimson Emperor Qi Xiayu, and so, in utter despair, he had gone to the Buddha Realm.

Little did he expect that it was Heavenly Lord Han who had struck the blow, and shifted the blame onto the Crimson Emperor!